A Glimpse
by Archer2
Summary: A quick look at Harry Potter's life as a father and husband.


**A Glimpse  
**by Archer2

**Author's Note:** This is just an idea I had in my head for a while, so I decided to share it with you all.

* * *

At the age of 23, Harry Potter became a father for the first time. He was much too young to be a parent, but he consoled himself with the fact that, at least, he had waited longer than his parents had to have him. If rationalized in that way, Harry could say that he had surpassed his parents in this area. He was three years more mature than them, a war veteran, and he had years of peace to look forward to, so there would be no sudden tragic deaths or abandonment for his newborn son to suffer.

Two years later, Harry Potter became a father for the second time. Again, he was much too young to be a father, let alone a father of two sons. But he consoled himself with the knowledge that, in this area, he had surpassed his parents. He now had two living children to his parents' one; along with, two complete years of parenthood experience to their eighteen months. Harry had won the silent contest, between past and present, but he did not feel happy with his accomplishment.

Three years later, Harry Potter became a father for the third time. The birth was only memorable because the gender of the child was different from the gender of the first two. With a female child, there came various added expenses that had not been necessary for the birth of his second son. New and gender-appropriate clothes had to be bought, along with little-girl furnishings and toys. Somehow, all this fuss was necessary and his mother-in-law, Molly Weasley, fully supported his wife in her shopping efforts.

A month later, once Ginny had fully recovered from the birth of their daughter, Harry began dosing his wife's food with infertility potions. A side effect of long-term exposure to the potion was uterine scaring, resulting in early menopause and permanent infertility.

Ginny found out about his deception six months later. She threatened to leave him and to take the children. Harry was not surprised that he did not feel any sense of impending loss at this possibility. As long as he was no longer responsible for the birth of another person, he didn't care where the surviving three children ended up.

Five years pass and no more children are born into the family. Ginny is often depressed and verbally abusive to their daughter. Harry does not understand why his wife has picked the girl-child to criticize, but, as is his duty as the child's father, he makes sure that he is always around to mitigate any situations between the two. His two sons are healthy and showing signs of magic. In another year, his oldest will be leaving for Hogwarts. Harry can only feel a sense of relief at this prospect.

When Harry is 38 years old, his two sons are away at Hogwarts. It has also become abundantly clear that his daughter is not magical. Harry does not understand why magic did not take root in his daughter the same as it did for his sons, but as she matures, her aura grows more and more mundane as the protective magic that all children of witches are born with, slowly wears off. Maybe this is why Ginny detests the girl so much. Either way, it becomes his responsibility to inform her that she can't attend Hogwarts with her brothers the following year. She cries when he is finished speaking.

Around the same time of his talk with Lilly Luna, Harry starts to receive numerous disciplinary notices from Hogwarts about James, concerning improper sexual contact between minors. Eventually, he and Ginny are invited for a meeting with the Headmistress, Minerva McGonagal, about James' behavior.

James is already waiting in the office upon their arrival. Right away, Harry knows his son is no longer a virgin. Ginny is not so sensitive to the changes in their son's aura, and it takes an additional thirty minutes of conversation for her to understand the real reason for the meeting.

Virginity, for a magical person, has always been a strong and important symbol of childhood and purity. With its loss, James had effectively blown away all of his childhood protections and blocks on his magic; thereby, making him a nexus of uncontrolled raw power that could no longer be safely routed through a wand and thus, the boy had crippled his chances of ever completing Hogwarts without immediate interference. It was a wonder that James had managed to find a partner ignorant enough to willingly undergo such a sacrifice for less than fifteen minutes worth of pleasure and the quasi-reliable promises of a teenage boy's eternal love.

McGonagall informs them that there were two options that would help James regain control of his magic. The first and most reliable was castration, which would forcibly remove the strong adult-male energy from James' aura, making his magic malleable once again; although, it would never gain strength as he aged like it would have, had he remained unaltered. The second option was tantamount to magical brain surgery, wherein James would have all of his previous sexual experiences expunged from his memories and from his aura, essentially returning him to childhood; however, there were severe side effects of memory loss, learning disabilities, and/or permanent brain damage.

Before Harry gives McGonagall an answer about what to do with his over-sexed-son, he asks the question he had held on to since the beginning of the meeting: "Is the girl pregnant?"

McGonagall tells them that, yes, the girl is pregnant and, to restore her purity, the girl's family has planned on removing the fetus before mentally and magically regressing her until she is little better than a 12-year-old in mind, if not in body.

"I want the fetus brought to me, unharmed," Harry says, without preamble. As Ginny and James gape in surprise at his demand, McGonagall looks at him with understanding. She has been a professor for over sixty years, and this is not the first time students under her supervision had found themselves in such a situation.

As McGonagall nods her understanding, James leans over to Harry and whispers, "Dad, I want the magical regression surgery."

Harry looks at his son, seeing the bizarre mix of his and Ginny's features reflected back at him in the boy's face, and says, with finality, "No. You'll be castrated. The last thing I need is a mentally damaged, magical powerhouse bumbling around my home. I will not risk it. Albus Severus will become my heir in your stead. He has always been more responsible than you anyway."

At the shocked and hurt look of his oldest son, Harry adds, "Sex has always had this effect on magical children. You were aware of this since you were 10 years old. I know, because I am the one that told you. You chose this. Now, you can deal with the consequences."

Before James can rush out of the room in a temper, Harry stuns him and floos him to the infirmary. It takes a bit more magic to bring down his son than it used to, but Harry has always been powerful and never once risked his purity until he was certain that he had attained true mastery of his magic. He is not so sure about Ginny, though. She has problems performing most of the more intricate pieces of magic. Maybe that is why she has never been able to rise above her middle management position at a magical items production company called, Twist's Treasures.

Five hours later, James is castrated. Four weeks after James' castration, Harry finally receives the extracted fetus from the girl's distraught father. Apparently, the procedure did not go well for the girl and she was now displaying various learning disabilities; though, there was still hope that she would outgrow her difficulties.

Before the girl's father leaves his doorstep, he asks Harry, "What do you plan to do with that?"

Harry looks down at the spell-protected box containing his first grandchild, and says, "Raise it, I suppose."

The surprise on the other man's face would have been humorous in any other situation. But this is not funny and Harry has really nothing left to say, so he steps back inside his house and closes the door.

Once the girl's father has left his property, Harry walks towards the barn in his backyard. Inside the barn is a placid brown and white cow, purchased just for this purpose. Harry immobilizes the cow, cuts into its belly, and pulls out its womb. With precise incisions, Harry cuts into the fleshy shriveled bag until he has a created a slit, about four inches long. He then opens the spelled box and removes his grandchild and places the fetus inside the cow's womb. After he carefully attaches the umbilical cord, Harry sows up the womb and re-inserts it into the cow's belly.

The procedure takes about ten minutes. If the fetus turns out to be magical, it will survive within the cow and will continue along with its normal gestation cycle. If not, then the cow's body will eventually break down the foreign body inside her womb, redistributing the nutrients to other parts of her body, no harm done.

One month later, it becomes clear that the cow is definitely pregnant and that the fetus was successfully transplanted. During that time, Ginny became extremely indignant about the mutilation of her oldest son and Harry's high-handed ways with decision-making. In an effort to hurt Harry, she constantly threatens violence towards the cow. Her threats became even more pronounced and serious when it is learned that the fetus is not only magical and healthy, it is female as well. As a result, Harry is forced to carefully monitor the health and progress of the cow and growing baby for the remaining seven months of gestation. James is aware of none of this controversy and manages to successfully complete his OWLs at Hogwarts.

On June 18, 2019, Harry Potter delivers his granddaughter and names her Stephanie Diana Potter, for the simple reason that the names sound nice together.

Since it is the middle of summer when he walks in to his house holding the newborn, all his children are home from school and see him enter through the back door. The commotion of the baby's arrival draws Ginny in to the family room and she is visibly upset at the sight of the infant in his arms. This is also the first time that James learns that Harry had taken such extravagant steps to prolong the life of his daughter, Harry's granddaughter.

If Harry had been a cruel man, this would have been the moment that he'd tell James that the baby is now his sole responsibility and for him to take good care of her, because it will be the only child that James will ever produce. But Harry is not cruel, so he says nothing to his oldest son and instead looks at his daughter and second son and says, "This is your niece, Stephanie. She has strong magic, otherwise, she would not have survived."

Harry knows that his words have hurt his daughter, but it is better that she knows the child is magical now rather than later. He can also feel Ginny's growing hostility towards the infant and knows that, soon, he will have to deal with Ginny. Although he does not love his children and grandchild like he knows he should, he will still protect them from danger.

James hurries out of the room, apparently overcome by the situation. Over the heads of the remaining children, Ginny sneers at Harry and heads towards the kitchen, possibly to cook, but most likely to use the kitchen's floo. Lilly Luna is crying silent tears as she looks jealously at the baby and Harry knows that he will have to be careful when leaving Stephanie alone in his daughter's care until he is sure that she will not hurt the infant. Only Albus looks at the newborn with curiosity and welcome. Then again, Albus has no emotional ties to the child's creation, gender, or magic, so his mellow reaction, when put into perspective, was no better or worse than that of the rest of the family's.

The next two years are difficult for the family.

James struggles at Hogwarts, his magical strength just not up to par for the requirements of sixth and seventh year subjects. He ends up earning NEWTs only in the subjects that aren't so heavily magic intensive. After graduation, James returns home with an attitude of shame and bitterness. Harry doesn't leave Stephanie alone with him, certain that James would take the opportunity to hurt the toddler. On more than one occasion, Harry is proven correct, and this only feeds James' sense of self-loathing.

Albus thrives at school, earning high OWLs in all of his chosen subjects. At 15, he is already taller than James and almost as tall as Harry. So far, Albus is the only child that hasn't yet become a disappointment and Harry believes he will be the most successful out of his three children.

Lilly, now 12, started muggle secondary school. She's rebellious, mouthy, and wears too much black. The music she listens to is too vulgar to be appropriate and she's constantly complaining about magic disrupting her Internet connection.

Stephanie has become Harry's responsibility. She started saying real words a little while ago. She hadn't yet managed to string them into sentences and make sense, but Harry is a Legilimens, so he always knows what she needs, just like he had known for his other children.

Ginny never did accept Stephanie and, unlike with Lilly, Ginny was unwilling to content herself with mean words and, instead, quickly progressed to sharp pinches and shoves, leaving behind bruises on the child's delicate skin. Recognizing the signs of escalation, Harry was forced to protect his grandchild and killed his wife.

During the investigation of his wife's death, the Aurors found evidence of an affair, of which Harry had been previously unaware. His very real and obvious surprise managed to convince the investigation team to look elsewhere for a motive. Although they had suspicions, the Aurors never found any evidence strong enough to prosecute Harry with Ginny's death. After a few months, the Aurors' visits tapered off and, eventually, stopped all together.

With Ginny gone, Lilly's attitude fluctuated for a while, before stabilizing into that of a smart, though melancholy, teenage girl. She earned decent enough grades to be accepted into Oxford University where she studied to become a veterinarian. Eventually, she met a nice young man, married, and had her first child, a little boy, when she was 29 years old. The boy was not magical.

James was never able to settle into a profession. His lack of magical strength always made sure that he would never be able to attain the prestige he had always dreamed of as a boy. Therefore, Harry was unsurprised that James killed himself exactly ten years after his magical and physical castration, when he was 25 years old. Symbols were important in magic and James' suicide resulted in magical storms that lead to the extensive flooding of the British Isles and hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage.

Albus grew into a handsome and intelligent young man. He ended up taking a Transfiguration apprenticeship and, in the effort to become an animagus, lost his mind to the animal and disappeared into the sea. He was 22 at the time of his disappearance and Harry felt his loss deeper than he had thought himself capable. Maybe he had loved his second son, after all.

As for James' daughter, Stephanie, she grew into a strong and dependable witch. After graduating from Hogwarts, she decided to pursue environmental magic, in the hopes of rectifying some of the damage muggle technology had wrought upon the world. Harry receives monthly letters with updates about her progress in her studies. In the last few letters, much of what she wrote concerned a young man working with her.

Finally alone in his house, with no more children or wife to distract him, Harry feels content. He did his duty by his family. He made sure that his family line would continue, though it would be through the women of his family rather than through his sons, as he had originally expected. Then again, there's still hope for future children bearing the name Potter. All that needed to happen for that eventuality to come to pass is for Albus to find his mind and climb out of the sea.

Symbols are important in magic. His parents had died when they were 21 years old. He, himself, had died and returned when he had been 18 years old. Like his namesake, James was dead before his time, leaving behind one magically powerful surviving child. But, for the cycle to be truly complete, Albus would have to return from his magical exile, like Harry had returned. Harry believes this is a definite possibility. Albus carries his blood, after all, and symbols are important. Then again, maybe that part of the cycle does not refer to Albus, but to Stephanie.

As for his daughter and granddaughter, he supposes that there is still hope for them living a relatively normal life, but they too carry his blood, so he doubts it. If he were to judge, he thinks Stephanie will probably give birth to one magically powerful child, before experiencing in a mysterious accident and dying. Since Lilly and his grandson are without magic, they are the only ones with the possibility of a truly normal life and he wishes them all the best.

Harry believes had been a decent father to his three children and one granddaughter. He never once belittled or hit them. He had helped Lilly find balance within her life, had ensured Stephanie lived past conception, had encouraged Albus in his scholastic pursuits, and had dealt with James' situation as humanely as possible. What more could anyone expect from a man raised by the Dursleys? What more could he have possibly done? As a whole, Harry supposes that he had done his job well or as well as could be expected from him, and now it was time for his children to bare the responsibility of carrying on the family line. His part was finished and theirs was just beginning.


End file.
